


The Pain Of Yesterday

by thedemonkingawakes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen, Hints of Olicity, Post Season 1, Pre Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedemonkingawakes/pseuds/thedemonkingawakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Oliver left for Lian Yu, he didn't disappear. He left people behind, people who will keep looking for him, who won't let him succumb to the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pain Of Yesterday

It had been nearly four and a half months since anyone had seen Oliver Queen. Felicity knew, she had been keeping track of the days. She and Diggle had scoured the media for any sign of him, extending their search as far as China and Australia, but they hadn’t found anything.

~*~*~

_Felicity was waiting for Diggle when he arrived. She was sitting on one of the barstools, a blanket draped around her shoulders, drinking a cup of coffee._

_“Any sign of him?” Felicity knew the answer even before she asked the question, seeing the dejected look on Diggle’s face._

_“No.”_

_“You don’t think he…” Felicity trailed off, not wanting to voice the thought._

_“Oliver’s strong. He can handle himself. If anyone could survive this, it would be him.” Diggle paused, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Thea and her boyfriend are out looking too. Apparently, she hasn’t heard a word from him since her mother’s announcement.”_

_“Poor girl. I can’t imagine what she must be going through, to get her brother back and then have him go missing again.”_

_Felicity stood up and walked into the Foundry. The oft-forgotten door on the other side of the lair swung slowly shut, startling Felicity. She hurried towards the door, Diggle right behind her, and pulled it open. The door led out onto the street, a half-block away from Verdant. There was no one in sight as Felicity looked around. She took one last glance, hoping to see the familiar green hood, and caught sight on a single arrow, lying at the edge of the street. It was one of Oliver’s arrows, complete with green fletching._

_She showed it to Diggle, who took it and examined it._

_“Suppose he’s not going to talk to us.” Diggle said._

_He walked back into the lair and slumped down in one of the chairs, too many late nights searching for Oliver finally catching up to him._

_Felicity followed him a moment later, a sheet of paper held in one hand. Wordlessly, she handed it to Diggle._

Dear Felicity and Diggle,

I’m leaving Starling City. I’m sorry I’m not telling you goodbye in person, but you would try and stop me. Thank you for everything you two did for me over the past year, and thank you for being my friends. Look out for Thea for me.

Goodbye,

Oliver Queen

_Diggle set the note down on the desk and sighed._

_“What now?” Felicity asked._

_“Now we keep looking.”_

~*~*~

_Oliver watched from the rooftop across the street as Felicity stepped outside and picked up the arrow he had left. For a moment, the temptation to reveal himself to her, to jump down from the roof and go back inside with her, was almost overpowering. Then, he remembered Tommy, lying dead in the rubble of CNRI because Oliver couldn’t stop Malcolm, couldn’t save Tommy. He waited until Felicity and Diggle had gone back inside and the door had shut firmly behind them before he turned and left, melting into the shadows as he leapt lightly from rooftop to rooftop._

~*~*~

Felicity finished installing the last of the new computers and sat back. In the three months since the Undertaking, she and Diggle had repaired the Foundry and she had upgraded the equipment within. Upgrading Oliver’s hideout had been the only thing that kept her from feeling useless since he left. She had run facial recognition software and combed through every intelligence database she could hack, but had come up with nothing.

One of the computers pinged, an alert popping up on the screen. Felicity rolled her chair over and opened up the alert. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t what she saw. A picture of Oliver talking with an older man filled the screen, dated four and a half months ago. The picture came from the A.R.G.U.S database. Felicity dug deeper, calling Diggle as she did so. He picked up after the third ring.

“Felicity? It’s after midnight.”

“I found him.”

“Where?”

“Working on that. Argus just got the information; it’ll take me a minute to get past their firewalls.” For a moment the only sound over the phone lines was the clicking of Felicity’s keys. “Lian Yu. He chartered a plane to fly over the island two days after Tommy’s death.”

Diggle sighed. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

As Felicity hung up, she pulled the picture of Oliver up again. Despite the sadness written plainly across his face, Felicity couldn’t help but smile. Oliver would be back in Starling City soon, back where he belonged. Home.

 

 


End file.
